New and Improved Lithium-Ion Batteries

Argonne National Laboratory researchers discovered a way to prevent li-ion battery overheating, as well as increase its storage capacity by 30 percent.

A couple of problems faced by the widely-used lithium-ion batteries are the risk of overcharging and the subsequent degradation of charging capability. Research for the improvement of lithium-ion has reached a milestone in Argonne National Laboratory where longer battery life and a 30 percent increase in storage capacity have been achieved. To be able to prevent overheating and combustion, researchers replace cobalt oxide electrodes (which easily overheat) with manganese oxide--a more stable material.

Furthermore, in order to increase the battery's storage capacity, researchers form a composite by mixing inactive materials with electrochemically active ones. Being inactive, the former doesn't incur any charge, and hence adds stability to the battery. With the composite in place, laptop batteries can reportedly be charged and discharged for 1,500 times, which is twice the lithium-ion's usual lifespan. More importantly, this composite can store 20 to 30 percent more energy than today's version.

This new technology is seeing its first step towards market availability with its licensing to Japanese company, Toda Kogyo. The Japanese firm is said to be able to manufacture 30 million laptop batteries with this new technology. Now that the development of the technology applied on laptop batteries is done, the Argonne team is researching it further for hybrid car application.